There're plenty of problems with Gundam Seed but giving the Archangel's bridge a CIC area with its own commander was a good idea.

It meant twice as many people able to yell about weapons and bulkheads.

Having lots of lines shouting about 'Gottfrieds', 'Korinthoses', 'Igelstellungs', 'Valiants', &c &c is such an important thing.

And I feel like a lot of screenwriting classes don't teach it.

[puffing on movie-mogul cigar] when people bring me scripts… they always want to talk about the 'shape' of the 'story'…

but the first question I always ask is… what's the CIWS called?

You know, I never did see that HD tilt-and-scan version of Seed they made.

And there's a pandemic on, and the PM says we can do silly, destructive things now.

Let's go watch some of that.

Seeing some of this again reminds one how much shreds of its influence have scattered out over the last two decades.

Makes me think of things from Geass to Crange.

While I'm being scrupulously fair: 'Anna na ni issho datta no ni' is a good ED song.

Its opening bars layer well over any episode's closing shots.

This guy doesn't have a funny character design, he's just been in lockdown like the rest of us.

Hmm, yeah. The tilt-and-scan job is undoubtedly intelligent, but it's surprising how much harder to follow some of the action is.

It might not seem like much in still images, but I was genuinely confused by this shot in the HD version.

This is a shame because, in my view, the bright, exciting, easily-read mobile suit fights were sometimes a bit of a strength for Seed.

Blowing the show up & putting it into 16:9 (the inferior aspect ratio) doesn't achieve much feeling of improvement.

King Gainer, which aired for the first half of Seed's run, upscales much more neatly than this, possibly because it just looks better in general.

HD doesn't kill off the actually pretty charming mechanical designs, mind. I always liked those & maintain that I was right to.

Beyond individual designs, there's a lot of pleasing unity in the depiction of physical things in Seed.

The colours & light applied to metal, the way ships' bridges and hangars appear, display screens. The CE looks plausibly coherent.

What the HD version does gain over the DVDs, I suppose, is a lot more line definition and colour brightness.

Oh, yes, also: the thing with the pre-launch cable attached to every MS that pings back when they leave the catapult? Sick. Great idea.

DVD quality covers a multitude of 3DCG sins for the Archangel.

I'd forgotten that there's a badly understaffed court martial for Kira in which Mu is the defence advocate & can't take it seriously.

Probably the best version of this show I've seen is SRW J.

All right, something else the show is competent about, at least in its first quarter: good cliffhangers.